Wildlife encounters: If you meet a bear, don't shoot. Spray
Bear pepper spray is better protection than a gun, a BYU biologist's
study finds
If you're roaming bear country, your best protection against an unpleasant
encounter is a can of bear spray, not a gun, according to Brigham Young
University wildlife biologist Tom Smith.
Smith's team, which included Stephen Herrero, a
world authority on bear attacks, has studied 600 bear encounters in Alaska
over two decades. In 72 incidents in which bear spray was used properly,
the bear stopped charging more than 90 percent of the time, according
to a study Smith published in the April edition of the Journal of
Wildlife Management. People using guns, by contrast, stood a one-in-three
chance of failing to deter the bear, according to an earlier study.
"The probability is the bear spray will outperform
a firearm and it's easy to see why. The bear spray is easy to deploy.
The rifle is just difficult to use," Smith said. Stopping a charging
bear with bullets required, on average, four hits.
Most of the 72 bear spray deployments Smith studied
involved grizzly bears; the rest were black and polar bears. His team
studied newspaper accounts, anecdotes and reports from wildlife agencies
to determine the bears' activity before being sprayed, the distance involved,
time of day, wind effects, mechanical problems and dosage of spray. Of
the 150 people involved, just three injuries were reported and none required
hospitalization.
"Tom is the best person to do this study because
he has so much hands-on experience with bears," said Chuck Bartlebaugh,
a vocal bear-spray advocate who leads the Center for Wildlife Information
in Missoula, Mont. "We need a similar study done for the Intermountain
region with inland grizzly bears who tend to be more aggressive because
they don't have the salmon runs."
Last year was the worst on record for human-bear conflicts
in Utah, with 203 black bear encounters, including a fatal mauling in
American Fork Canyon. That total was substantially higher than in the
previous four years combined, probably the result of poor natural food
sources and a high number of fledgling juveniles leaving their home turf,
according to Kevin Bunnell, large-mammal coordinator for the Division
of Wildlife Resources.
Utah's wet winter bodes well for the coming season, "but
it can turn south in a hurry," Bunnell said. "A single late
freeze can have a big impact. So can a hot, dry July or August."
Smith's findings should debunk common reasons given
for not carrying bear spray, which Smith calls ''an olfactory assault
weapon.'' Although wind can interfere with bear pepper spray accuracy,
wind rarely reduced the spray's effectiveness, probably because most
discharges occur in wooded areas and the spray exits the nozzle at 70
mph. His team found no instances in which the spray malfunctioned and
only two instances in which the sprayers incapacitated themselves.
"Bear spray diffuses potentially dangerous
situations in the short term by providing the user time to move out of
harm's way and allowing the bear time to reassess the situation and move
on," Smith wrote. "When food or garbage is involved with bear
conflict, bear pepper spray is effective initially, but one can expect
bears to continue returning until these attractants are removed or otherwise
secured."
Smith's study, funded by his former employer, the
U.S. Geological Society and the Alaska Science Center, shows that bear
spray can help conserve grizzlies, protected as a threatened species.
Every fall in the lands around Glacier and Yellowstone
national parks, elk hunters kill grizzly bears in self-defense. According
to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, between 1980 and 2002, 49 grizzlies
were fatally shot by people protecting themselves around Yellowstone
(accounting for nearly one in six of all known bear deaths). Another
23 were shot around Glacier.
"In most cases there are no attempts to carry
bear pepper spray, much less use it. Every time a hunter decides to shoot
instead of use bear pepper spray they are making a decision they are
going to set back grizzly bear recovery," said Brian Peck, of the
Great Bear Foundation. "Had those people used bear spray, not only
would [the bears] be alive, they would know that this red hot spray stuff
will be really nasty and to avoid it and they would pass this information
on. Bears are smart."
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